Spark

Chen Nian's claim that nuclear fusion will be completed in three years is of course pure bragging.

In fact, even if all the theoretical foundations are in place and all the material problems are solved, just a Q value greater than 1 is enough for the already weak scientific research force in China to work hard for several years.

This point does not need professionals, even a layman like Li Xiang is actually clear.

However, on the other hand, if the growth rate of the source points can reach the expected standard, it is actually feasible to save enough points for nuclear fusion in three years.

And that's what he really meant.

As for the application, it will be done step by step.

After all, such a technology that can directly bring mankind into the next era cannot be built overnight.

Even the most radical technical planning will not deliberately break this most basic law.

If it was a few hours ago, this cognition might have made Chen Nian anxious.

But fortunately, now he has completely figured it out.

Therefore, the fact that "critical technological leaps cannot be realized immediately" only brings him more incentives.

After returning to his residence, he started a new round of study non-stop, and at the same time, the effects of the first live broadcast were constantly fermenting.

Things are gradually starting to develop in a good direction.

But, on the other side, someone was not very happy.

In the office of the May Club.

"Stupid! Stupid!"

Houston shook his head while watching the live recording on the screen.

He really couldn't figure out how these so-called "media" could be so stupid.

A good high-speed rail project, let you shoot a model reality show?

What kind of international joke is this?

Moreover, the operation process shown in the screen is also extremely ridiculous. In what age, there are still people laying railroad tracks manually?

Do you think this is the westward movement of the last century?

The power of stereotyped impressions is so terrifying that even a group of highly educated media ignore objective facts.

On the other hand, the videos made by Huaxia people are much more professional.

Although there are no eye-catching shots, they at least show the state of the foundation of an infrastructure project.

In the eyes of experienced people, one can tell the difference at a glance.

The seemingly chaotic accumulation of earthworks actually marks the efficiency of the project's saturated operation, while the steel frame structure standing abruptly on both sides of the land foundation is the prototype of the gantry crane.

It is conceivable that what the other party is doing now is some fairly basic preparatory work.

But even with these preparations, the efficiency is already much better than that of our own side.

The average daily pavement is 500 meters. Obviously, they have introduced large-scale paving machines, and this kind of machinery, which has never been reported on a large scale before, is the result of the so-called "moving mountains" project by the Chinese.

Their progress is fast.

——

As fast as all their key projects have been in recent years.

If things go on like this, once the other party really starts to expose the true strength of the project, then their own Los Angeles-San Francisco project will be completely meaningless.

After all, this is a "propaganda project" in the first place. If the effect of publicity is lost, what is the need for it to exist?

Thinking of this, Houston sighed and said:

"We have to put restrictions on the media -- at least, they should be guided to some extent."

"The current reporting method is absolutely unacceptable. It can only serve as a topic of interest. In the future, we should switch to a rigorous reporting style like Huaxia."

"Only in this way can we truly show our strength, otherwise."

"I don't quite agree with this."

Before Houston finished speaking, the assistant interrupted him.

He frowned and asked:

"Disagree? Why not?"

The assistant took out a page from the thick stack of documents and handed it to Houston, then replied:

"From the perspective of data performance, we are obviously superior to each other in terms of ratings and topic discussion."

"This proves that our media choices are on the right track."

"After all, to be honest, ordinary people are not interested in this project at all. What they need is a kind of 'titty fun' entertainment."

"Both historical experience and economic theory have told us that in times of economic downturn, teat music is an excellent means of maintaining stability."

"Our biggest goal is to maintain the most basic social stability under the economic crisis. Now that our strategy has produced results, why should we abandon it?"

Hearing the assistant's words, Houston's brows furrowed even more.

He shook his head slightly and said:

"Your theory is basically correct, but have you ever thought that, to some extent, this is a kind of slow suicide."

"Yes, we can indeed use the current method to please our people, but what about later? What will we do next?"

"Create one so-called 'American image' after another? When a serious engineering project is labeled with this kind of label, who cares what it actually does?"

"This is extremely detrimental to the later progress of the high-speed rail project, we."

"But, who really cares about the later stage of the project?"

The assistant interrupted Houston again.

"Does the president care? Does Congress care? Do investors care?"

"Mr. Houston, I think you've got one thing wrong."

"It's not the so-called railroad tycoons who invested in this project, but the wolves of Wall Street."

"They don't care whether the line will be completed, whether it will be profitable or not."

"What they care about is to boost market confidence through this project, so as to make back the money they lost in the financial market!"

Houston's eyes widened. He subconsciously wanted to refute, but suddenly realized that he really had no room to refute.

Yes, the organizational form of this country has determined the fate of this project.

If you talk about long-term returns with profit-seeking, short-sighted financial speculators, do they really care?

The construction period of several years is too long for them, and they cannot bear such a long wait.

The most likely result is that after the project is on the right track and the financial market is active again, they sell their shares to others at double or even higher prices.

Isn't the "return on investment" that can be achieved by doing this much higher than that of foolishly waiting for the project to be completed?

So, the assistant is right.

The report itself is to arouse public opinion and make positive publicity.

But now, the goal has been achieved, why should I care about the so-called "achievement form"?

That being the case, let them continue to work. Maybe there will be unexpected surprises?

Soon after, the second live broadcast of the Los Angeles-San Francisco high-speed rail project started.

In the studio, the live broadcast director stared nervously at the screen. Following the command of "Start Live Broadcast", Evans' iconic face instantly appeared on the screen.

The lighting is perfect, the expression is perfect, and even his actions when he appears on the stage are exactly in line with the script design.

The reporter who was waiting at the side stepped forward quickly and accurately handed the microphone to his mouth.

"Evans, how's your day?"

"Very good, still a good day, as you can see, we've had more big machinery coming in, and we've become much more efficient"

There was no mistake in the question and answer, the director slightly raised his hand, and cut the scene to the second camera.

Afterwards, the camera precisely scanned the large machinery parked aside, and the close-up picture stayed at a low position, shooting those already tall excavators and bulldozers as majestic as a cruiser on land.

After the camera paused for a moment, the director pressed the button again, and the scene cut back to Evans again.

It was this excellent scheduling that made the ratings numbers show in front of his eyes, jumping up 0.1 percentage points directly.

At this time, the ratings of the live broadcast had reached 2.3%, while the ratings of the live channel, which was broadcasting the construction of the Huaxia Beijing-Shijiazhuang High-speed Railway, was only a pitiful 0.06%.

A satisfied smile appeared on the director's face.

It is true that the ratings here can only show the domestic situation, but so what?

As long as you can hold down the opposite end steadily, you will be able to satisfy the gentlemen above!

What's more, as far as he knows, in China, the discussion on the American Los Angeles live broadcast is much higher than their own programs. If the other party dares to broadcast live, even in their own country, the ratings will definitely be high. will be beaten down.

What a formidable opponent.

The director breathed a sigh of relief, and then he said into the microphone:

"Don't stop and get Evans back to his normal job."

"At the scene, pay attention to the shooting angle, so as not to interfere with his movements."

"Don't forget, only men at work are the most attractive -- not just Evans, get everyone moving!"

"clear."

The on-site dispatcher gave a short answer in the earphone, and then, according to the reporter's guidance, Evans picked up his tools again.

".Yes, we have been very busy these days."

"Let's be honest, even making time for interviews is a luxury for us."

"So, excuse me, I have to keep working—of course, I can answer your questions at work."

Evans uttered the linking words he had already memorized smoothly, and the camera cut away for half a minute, giving a panoramic view of the busy construction site.

However, it was this panorama that caused the program's ratings to drop sharply.

It actually dropped from 2.3% to 1.9%!

The director immediately realized the seriousness of the problem, and he quickly cut back and fixed it on Evans.

"These bastard viewers. If I had known this was the case, I might as well have arranged an adult show for them"

"Here, let Evans take his shirt off."

"Make him work like a real man!"

His order was immediately carried out, and after only a dozen seconds, the ratings jumped a lot, directly breaking through the 3% mark!

Sure enough!

A look of joy appeared on the director's face.

He felt that he seemed to have grasped the password that could increase the ratings.

You don't need to prepare any professional questions like those Chinese people, and of course you don't need to work hard to do science popularization.

The only thing to do is to match what you like and only shoot what the audience wants to see!

And what they want to see, isn't it obvious? ——

However, this phenomenon also caused the director to fall into contradictions.

Now it's Evans, what about next time?

His eyes scanned the various screens on the monitor, and he thought to himself:

An Evans who can only capture the hearts of female audiences.

But what if... there could be a female character of the same type as Evans?

Hmm. Men should not be able to reject working women in this environment.

The problem is, on the entire project site, it seems that there is not even a single woman who meets the requirements.

Perhaps, I should start arranging actors?

Seeing that the ratings continued to rise, the director didn't have time to think too much. He continued to schedule the live broadcast. With several successful operations, the program's ratings reached an astonishing 4%.

For such a program, such ratings can be called unprecedented success.

A satisfied smile appeared on his face, and then he leaned back in his chair, his eyes subconsciously glanced at the numbers recording the ratings of Huaxia's broadcast programs.

Just looking at it like this, his eyes suddenly widened.

The original ratings of 0.06% have actually changed.

In just half an hour, the ratings of the broadcast had exceeded 0.1%.

What's happening here?

Did they use the same strategy?

"Help me access the Huaxia live broadcast."

The director said in a low voice.

He already felt a little uneasy in his heart, but before the assistant answered, the ratings of the relay channel moved again.

But this time, the ratings actually went up by 0.2% to 0.3%!

What are you doing?

"Hurry up and connect, I want to see what they are doing!"

shouted the director eagerly.

"Understood, but it will take time. Give me a minute."

The director glared at the assistant angrily, then turned to continue checking Evans' interview process.

His eyes moved away from the broadcast ratings number for a few seconds, but when he looked at the numbers again, he was surprised to find that the ratings of this thing had already reached 1%!

What's the matter? !

"Quick! What are you doing?"

The assistant on the side trembled slightly, but did not dare to answer, and was still operating various equipment in his hands to process signals.

After 30 seconds passed, the ratings of the rebroadcast channel continued to rise. This time, it skipped the 1% range and came to the range starting with 2!

At this moment, the director almost thought that he had made a mistake.

How did such explosive growth come about?

The doubts in his heart were almost full.

But fortunately, the signal processing was done very quickly. After more than a minute, when the audience rating of the rebroadcast channel reached 2.4%, the rebroadcast picture finally appeared on the monitor.

The director quickly looked at the monitor, and then he froze in place.

It's completely different from what I thought.

The other party did not find a "typical representative" like Evans at all.

In their pictures, there is not even a single character.

Instead, there are huge machines one after another.

Hard and straight lines, powerful arcs, huge mechanical arms, and octopus-like positioning piles.

The director recognized that among those equipment, there were more than twenty excavators of different types and models.

This. Civilian version of Iron Torrent? !

He opened his mouth and watched the ratings continue to rise.

And in the screen, with the reporter's voice-over introducing the mechanical performance in detail, these machines started one by one, and began to rush to their own battlefields.

The roar almost completely suppressed the reporter's voice.

But it seems that no one cares.

Those viewers, they just want to get a good look at those land behemoths.

And those giant beasts did not disappoint them.

The dust was flying, and the red indicator light kept flashing. At a glance, the project site was completely different from the previous live broadcast.

If the last live broadcast of the Huaxia people seemed to take the audience back to the past, then this time, it went directly to the future.

A future completely filled with mechanical power!

The ratings are still rising, but the ratings of our own live broadcast are constantly declining, even falling below the baseline of 1.5%.

The director looked at Evans' face on the screen, and then at the "ultra-large track-laying unit that weighs thousands of tons and integrates machinery and electronics."

At this moment, he suddenly had a feeling.

Machinery is the real romance.

And Evans, like a clown.